Towards the Use of Video Games for Learning: A Survey ...

Towards the Use of Video Games for Learning: A Survey about Video Games

Preferences of Engineering Students

María José Bouciguez, Graciela Santos Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires

Tandil, Buenos Aires (7000), Argentina

and

María José Abásolo Facultad de Informática, Universidad Nacional de La Plata

La Plata, Buenos Aires (1900), Argentina

ABSTRACT Video games are now a widespread cultural practice,

especially among young people, making them an ideal

medium for the design of learning processes. In order to

design educational technologies that provide teaching support we must first understand the practices developed by

the young with computers and especially with video games.

The aim of the present study is therefore to learn about the

experience and expectations about video games among students, particularly engineering students. The results are

going to be considered in the design of educational

technologies based on interactive virtual environments that

mediate the learning processes, particularly in physics course of engineering studies. Keywords: Design educational technologies, virtual reality,

interactive learning environments, video games, simulations

1. INTRODUCTION

Worldwide deep socio-cultural transformations affecting

both societies and their governments, communities and

individuals are influenced by new technologies and advances

in the digital world. In [1] young people are introduced to the virtual world via video

games, and the ways that they interact with technology may

affect the way they learn and develop knowledge. A game

environment that captivates a player by offering challenges

educational properties of Highly Interactive Virtual

Environments (HIVE) [3] such as simulations and video games, include the following features: the dynamic

representation of complex phenomena, difficult to

implement in the classroom or the laboratory; the interaction

between digital objects and the visualization of its

explicit; the representation of relationships and processes,

fostering understanding of the underlying concepts; the

immediate feedback, control of variables and the relationship between multilingual representations (oral, written,

algebraic, graphic, technological), allowing hypothesizing

and testing ideas. Technology understood as "a cultural

to mediate their actions in the world, develops ways of

thinking and acting. More specifically, the internalization of

the cognitive abilities involved in the use of ICT generates

modes of symbolic representation that become tools of thought. There is therefore a cognitive residue that results

from continuous exchanges with computer technology in

different situations and contexts ([4]; [5]; [6]). If the

practices of entertainment with video games leave cognitive residues, these are going to influence new learning mediated

by digital technologies, according to mentioned in [4]. We aim is to develop educational technologies based on

interactive virtual environments that mediate the learning processes in courses of physics of first year of Engineering

careers. Other similar works like that ([7]) comment that if

they had interviewed teachers and students at the beginning

of the process with no doubt they have had learnt a great deal about their needs in these areas and they had designed a

very different sort of math learning software. This paper

presents a study that shows the experience and expectations

of video games of students of first year of engineering careers. A questionnaire survey was used to request

information from the students. Section 2 presents a

classification of video games. Section 3 describes the

methodology used to conduct the study. Section 4 presents the results. Section 5 presents the conclusions and future

work.

Like most computer products, video games support multiple classification criteria. Classifications have been changing

since they focus on different characteristics of video games.

On the other hand, new games appear in the market that can

incorporate new classification categories. The classification

etc. In ([8]) is presented a review of video games classification

proposed by different authors. [9] groups video games in terms of the

possibilities to develop certain skills such as reflection,

strategic and tactic knowledge or mental agility. The classification proposed by Carrasco in [10] takes into

Game technique refers to the procedure or method to be

followed by the player to achieve the goal. Gross in [1] for classification considers what to do or to solve in the game, for example, the action games are those

reaction-based games, the adventure games are those where

you have to solve a number of tests to progress. Some video games are easy to label, however, due to advances in games development, classification becomes

increasingly ambiguous and difficult. In this study, a

typology was developed (Table 1) based on these three mentioned classification. As can be seen each type or

category is subdivided in different subcategories or subtypes.

Our categories are non exclusive in the sense that one video

game can belong to more than one group.

JCS&T Vol. 14 No. 1 April 2014

25

Table.1.

Type of video game Description

Arcade: Action Arcade:

Fighting

Shooting:

o FPS

o TPS

Arcade platform

Arcade puzzle

These games require a great mental dexterity to respond quickly. There is interaction with the environment by providing precise and quick responses through simple actions (jump, kick, shoot,

etc). Fighting games consist in characters engaged in hand-to-hand combat using martial arts techniques

or weapons, an example is Mortal Kombat. Shooting games consist in shooting anything, either a character or an object such as an aircraft. In First Person S Third Person Shooter (TPS) differ from FPS in the way that the player and the character are

-screen. In platform or maze games, the player must advance along different screens overcoming obstacles,

jumping and eliminating what prevents him from advancing. As the game unfolds, it becomes

harder, due to either the time component or the environment impediments. An example is Mario

Bros. Puzzle games demand mental agility from the player. These may involve problems of logic,

strategy, pattern recognition, filling in words, or even chance. The genre may be difficult to

describe as each one possesses its own style Examples are Tetris and Minesweeper.

Strategy These games require planning and strategy in order to advance. The development of hypothetical

thinking and logic in decision-taking may be facilitated. They are commonly characterized by their long duration. An example is Age of Empires.

Simulation Social

Construction

Sports

The player plunges into a virtual world that simulates real aspects of life. An example of social simulation is The Sims; An example of construction is The Sim City; An example of sport simulation is Pro Evolution Soccer (PES).

Adventure An adventure is recreated through characters, tests, mystery and unfolding situations. There is high

interactivity with the environment and other characters as well as a need for constant decision-

taking, e.g. Indiana Jones.

Role: Single player role-

playing

Multiplayer online role-playing

Progress depends on the characters evolution in an unreal scenario. Each player takes on a role. The player creates a character (choosing profession, race, weapons, and so on) and then, introduces the character in the game where fights against other characters (players or non-player) or performs

various adventures or quests with the aim of to gradually increase the levels and the experience. Examples are Final Fantasy and World of Warcraft (WoW).

Serious games

for different application areas, always taking into consideration the expectations of the intended

([11]). Examples are Rome Reborn and Virtual Priorato Undercroft.

Casual games

concept, fun, quick to access, easy to learn, simple to play and that require no previous special

video game skills, expertise or regular time commitment to play. In addition, casual games are

games use less powerful computers when compared to shooting or RPG genres. They are available in many platform formats: PCs, video game consoles, handheld game consoles and mobile phones.

([12]). Examples are Minesweeper, Pacman, Tetris.

3. SURVEY DESIGN Questionnaire The present research aimed to identify experiences,

preferences and interests regarding video games among first

year students of Engineering careers. We sought to understand the following key questions:

1. What knowledge and technological devices do respondents have access to?

3. What are the video games most played by this generation? 4. Is there a significant difference in terms of gender regarding the choice of video games?


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ives are considered the best? 6. Which graphs are considered the best? 7. What games are easier to use according to the

respondents? The data collection was done using a questionnaire designed

by grouping the questions in three main sections. In the first

group of questions general information such as age, gender

and type of engineering course was requested. In the second group of questions with the aim of gathering information

consisted of a tabl

rows, with the alternative of adding more video games at the end of the table. The questions for each game were ordered

information about which games students play or played, as

well as about the narrative, graphics and difficulty of the game selected. The first closed-ended question inquired

about what games the student was currently playing, which

ones he had ever played or whether he had never played any.

Two closed-ended questions asked respectively about the narrative/story and the graphics/animation of the game. The

-ended question regarding the difficulty of the game when the player started to play with enabled to

choose among the following non-exclusive answers: :

The third and last groups of questions inquired about the

knowledge and experience in using information technologies

and their preferred leisure activities. The issues refers to the type of equipment the respondents use and/or know (e.g. PC,

Notebook, Netbook, Mobile Phone with no internet access,

Mobile Phone with internet access, Video game Console and

GPS). Also they respond the type of internet connection they have (dial up, broad band or none) and the time they spend

connected to internet.

preferred leisure activities and usual kind of entertainment

Population sample The sample consisted of 229 students from the first year of

Engineering careers at two faculties at the National

University of the Centre of Buenos Aires Province

(UNCPBA), Argentina. The questionnaire was applied at the beginning of 2011, during the first month of the teaching

period. The ages of most of the students fall within a range

between 17 and 19 years old. The 60.8% of the students are

18 years old, 16.6% are 17 years old and 13.8% are 19 years old.

Various statistics of Iberoamerican countries and also

international ones reinforce the fact that the sample chosen

(fig. 1) for this study can be considered representative of the population of interest -

young college students - particularly in terms of age and

gender. The first international report on the state of engineering

published by UNESCO ([13]) noted, regarding to gender,

that the efforts made in many countries to promote the

participation of women in engineering had resulted in

young women enrolled in engineering careers increased from 10% -15% to 20%, and even more. However, from 2000 this

proportion was declining. In some countries the women

The same results can be found in articles that refer to the situation of any particular College or University. In [14] is

noted that new students to engineering careers in Argentina,

only 20% are women. Similarly, in [15] taken as axis of

analysis the National Technological University (NTU) in Argentina and is expressed the low index of entry of women

to higher education (or undergraduate) dedicated to

engineering and technical careers. In that article the author

states that "... the engineering is the discipline that resists more the female advance, although most men also worried,

reports ([15], [16]) agree that women are inclined to the

Engineering Chemistry where have even exceed to the number of male students. The same gender difference in

technical and technological careers occurs in other Latin

American countries such as Mexico ([17]), Brazil ([15]) and

Chile ([18]).

Fig.1. Distribution of respondents by gender and career

4. RESULTS Data analysis was performed using GNU PSPP Statistical

Analysis Software. The frequency and percentage of each response were calculated.

Technological resources Considering that video games can be developed to be executed in different computing platforms, it is interesting to

learn which are the most common technological resources

that are used by the studied population. The results of the analysis indicate that the mobile phone with internet access

(60.7%) and the video game console (53.1%) are the second

and third technological device most widely used by students

after PC (91.1%). The 50% of the students have a notebook , the 44.6% have a mobile phone without internet access and


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29% have a netbook. The 25.9% of the students have a GPS

About the type of internet connection is obtained that that

most of the students have a broadband connection (76%). And in relation to the time they spend connected to the

the 26% of the students spend connected less than an hour a

day. Almost half of the population of the sample (45%) is connected between one to four hours a day and the 21% is

connected more than four hours a day. Preferent leisure activities The results indicate that using the computer (84.8%) is of the students more preferred activity. Most of them specified that

they use the computer to get access to social networks, to

listen to or download music, to play video games and to chat.

The second preferred activity is watching TV (61.2%). The most watched programs are about sports (football,

basketball), entertainment and documentaries (particularly

they pointed out Discovery Channel). In the open option "others", the 43.8% of respondents mentioned other preferred activities. Among the leisure

activities most mentioned are sport or physical activity

(8.5%), listening / playing music or dancing (3.1%) and

reading (1.8%). The most played video games The main question about video games was, what are the video games most played by this generation. The results

show that the number of games played at least once varies

between 0 (no game selected) and 29 (maximum number of

games selected per student). On average, students selected 10 games from the 44 proposed. Figure 2

The fourteen most played games are: Pro Evolution Soccer (PES), Need for Speed (NFS), The Sims, Mortal Kombat,

Minesweeper, Pacman, Call of Duty (CoD), Age of Empires

(AoE), Tetris, Pinball, FIFA Soccer (FIFA), World of

Warcraft (WoW), Chess and Carte Blanche (Solitaire Card). Students suggested a total of 53 additional games to those

proposed in the survey. Among the added games, the most

mentioned ones were Counter Strike, in fifteen

questionnaires (6.7%), GTA in eight (3.57%), and Crysis in seven (3.13%). The remaining ones were only mentioned by

one or two students.

Fig.2. Ranking of video games with the percentage of students selecting each one of the video games

Table 2 shows the 14 most played video games characterized based in the typology defined in section 2. On the basis of

this table, it can be stated that simulation and casual games

(arcade puzzle and platform games) are the most played

types of games. Of the simulations, protrude of the sports

simulations. This coincides with the leisure activities most

watched. PES is considered a hybrid with strategy since it

enables the player to develop organizational skills in a sport

team ([8]).


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Table.2. Types of the fourteen most chosen videogames

past and present respectively was realized. In generally is

observed that the respondents play less in the present that in the past. Some of the comments indicate their current lack of

time available to play due to university obligations. Related

to this, the analysis shows that most of the most played

casual games appear within the first fourteen videogames in the two rankings (past and present), which could suggest that

they are games that have not lost its validation.

While in Table 2 the video games The Sims, Mortal Kombat

and Pacman appear among the fourteen most played, this is because they were the most played in the past. However,

they are a long way from the top in the ranking of the most

played at present. The three video games most played

nowadays (PES, NFS, CoD) are characterized by being quite realistic simulation. The first two are sport games (racing,

driving and football), whereas the third one is an action

game (CoD) which simulates the infantry and the army

fighting during the Second World War. The three games are multiplayer.

Several researchers on video games ([19]; [8]) define the

market of video games as a male market, where most of the agents involved are men, despite the slow but progressive

increase of the number of amateur women in this

entertainment. In this study, we wonder if there is significant difference in term of gender regarding the choice of video games to play.

analyzed in order to

characterize their preferences. The results show that men had played between 0 and 29 games, with an average of 10 games. In contrast, women had

played between 0 and 12 games with an average of 6 games.

respondent who have reported playing each of the fourteen games respectively.

Table 3. The 14 most played games according to gender.

Table 4.Ranking of preferred games according to gender

It can be stated that males prefer sport simulation games

(soccer (PES), car racing (NFS)), action games (shooting

(CoD), fighting (Mortal Kombat)) and strategy games (conquest (AoE)). In contrast women prefer equally either

casual games (Pacman, Minesweeper, Tetris, and Pinball) or

-square

statistic was used to test significant dependence between the respondent´s gender and the selected video game. The results

demonstrated a significant relationship between the variable

that shows whether the student plays PES (.000), Pacman

(.003), CoD (.000), FiFa (.000) or Solitaire Card (.000), and the gender variable, since in the five aforementioned cases,

the value obtained are lower than 0.05. The size of the sample, the accuracy of the data and the

sample bias are three factors that may alter the results of the Chi-squared test, for this motive an accuracy test was

performed that validated the results obtained with chi-

squared test. The results too agree with the report of Nielsen

non-aggressive games that allow them to create fantasies and

to


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According with this, The Sims is among the most preferred

by women. Most of the games what were chosen by a very

small percentage of women not provide any lead role to

women; for example CoD.

Narratives, graphics and difficulty of the video games

The underlying narrative in a video game is one of the most

important aspects associated with the interest that they can generate. The results of analyses suggest that most of games

with the best narrative (CoD, WoW, AoE, PES and NFS) are

simulations that require that the player to identify himself

with an avatar that belongs to a particular social group and challenges them to carry out missions in which feelings and

emotions are at play. The graphical elements of the games have change in the last

two decade at an very accelerated rate, from classic 2D games, passing through for pre-rendered graphics, awesome

3D visuals, photorealistic visuals up to graphics similar to

movies. The games considered to have the best graphics

(CoD, NFS and PES) are those developed in a virtual 3D world with a very good design and providing a attractive

level of realism. These games they correspond to those

mentioned them above as the most played nowadays. Each

new version of these games launched to the market incorporates improvements mainly in both the game engine

and artificial intelligence (AI). These video games are

followed by FIFA and WoW. Conversely, the narrative and the graphics of most casual games are considered

they tend to be quite simples. Incorporating a video game into a pedagogical design should

not mean taking up lesson time to learn to master it or deflect

activity. Therefore it is interesting to know which games are

more easier and intuitive to the students. Casual games were

the least difficult to play according to of the surveyed . These results agree with the main traits of casual games, i.e.

being easy to learn. Approximately half of the students expressed the view about

the difficulty of NFS, FIFA, PES, The Sims, CoD and Mortal Kombat considered that are not difficult to play. Of

these games, the first three are sports simulations. Mortal Kombat and PES were found difficult in terms of

elements. The main difficulty may be that the player must

employ a combination of keys or controls to make the

character play tricks and thus gain credits. However, these

two games are considered less difficult because less than 4.3% of students declared them difficult in terms of the

rules. Age of Empire received the lowest percentage, among the

fourteen video games, of students who considered it does not present difficulties. This percentage is small compared with

the sum of those who argued that these games' rules were

difficult to understand and those who consider difficult to

use / to know / find the game's commands or elements. AoE is a strategy game simulating a conquest, much slower than

others, and there are numerous options on the screen which

may prevent quick familiarization with thobjectives. It becomes then necessary before playing it, to

explore the game by using the demo and the training or retry

plays.

Table. 5. Re narrative, graphic and

difficulty of the fourteen most chosen videogames

The four most played games are considered with the

narrative and graphical acceptable (Very Good /Good /

Relatively good). However, with the exception of NFS, the

use the commands or elements of these games presents some difficulty in the respondents' opinion. Casual games are considered with narratives and poor

graphics, and most of them are not difficult or the difficulty

lies in understanding the game but not in the use of the commands or elements game. The best narratives (very

good) also correspond to games that have the best graphics.

5. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK

Our final goal is to develop educational technologies based on interactive virtual environments that mediate the learning

processes, particularly in courses of physics of first year of

Engineering careers. We consider that we should first

understand the practices developed by the young with computers and video games. In this paper we presented the

results of a survey to get knowledge of the population of

interest about practices with technology and video games.

Technological devices that the students possess in a country can be influenced by exogenous factors such as policies of

govern, acquisitive power of the society, cost of the

technological devices. However there is a worldwide

tendency to incorporate new technologies in the learning process. The Ibero-American States Organization (OEI) and

the Ibero-American Conference of Ministers of educations

agreed a set of educational goals for the region, and they

assumed that "it is necessary to move towards a knowledge society and information, incorporate new technologies in

teaching and learning, to design curriculum commensurate

with the skills that students will need to actively integrate in

society and in the workplace, and to incorporate in schools, the scientific progress, educational innovation and the new

meanings of culture"([21]). Particularly, due to the policy

implemented by the government of Argentina and others


30

countries of the region, in a few time most of first year

students will have a notebook.

Our results show that 91% of students have a PC, the 50% of

them also has a notebook and the 60% has mobile phone. Thus the most appropriate platform formats to design

educative technologies would be not only the PC but in a

short time it also would be the mobile phones and the

notebooks. One of the preferred leisure activities of young are

communicating with peers and sharing experiences in social

networks. That is why incorporating online forums, chat

rooms and also multiplayer video games in the design of technologies for learning is considered opportune. Besides

this fact these tools add the social nature of learning

attributed by educational theories.

The results show that students spend a long time playing with video games. Knowing which and how are the most

played video games by the students could be used to

infer their previous knowledge and skills. There are

differences in the number and type of video games chosen for men and for women. Women have less experience with

video games than men. Women choose casual games such as

arcade platforms and puzzles, and also social simulation

games. While men choose simulation sport games, arcade action games and strategy games. In spite of the difference in

some choices, there are some common points that can be

taken into account. For instance, both men and women, have

experience with casual games, that have simple graphics and narrative and that are easy to learn. Besides these simple

video games, also simulations video games (social and

sportive) are chosen by both genres. This type of games

used to be multiplayer and have the most realistic 3D graphics.

It should be desirable to design a video game based

educational tool with a reduced time for learning itself, with

no difficulties in commands and rules. There some elements to be extracted from the highlights games such as the

possibility of seeing a demonstration and also the possibility

of exploring with training or retry plays to familiarize with.

As a future work it is the study of some games that are adapted to teach specific physics concepts. The specific

competences that the students of engineering have to acquire

complexity. The particular difficulties pointed by professors should be defined as a challenge that the students must

overcome to reach the success of the level.

6. REFERENCES

[1] Games- Journal of Research

on Technology in Education, Vol. 40, No 1, 2007, pp. 23-38. [2] N. Balasubramanian, and B. G. Wilson, Games and

simulations. In C. Crawford et al., (Eds.), ForeSITE, Volume One, Proceedings of Society for Information Technology and

Teacher Education International Conference 2006.

Chesapeake, VA: AACE, 2006. [3] C. Aldrich, Virtual worlds, simulations, and games for education: A unifying view. Innovate, Vol. 5, No 5, 2009 [4] G. Salomon, D. N. Perkins and T. Globerson, Partners in

Cognition: Extending Human Intelligence with Intelligent Technologies. Educational Researcher, Vol. 20, No 3, 1991,

pp. 2-9.

[5] C. Lion, Imaginar con tecnologías. Buenos Aires: La

Crujía Ediciones, 2006. [6]

cognitivo cuando se introducen nuevas tecnologías. El caso Revista

Electrónica Teoría de la Educación: Educación y Cultura en

la Sociedad de la Información, Vol. 10, N. 1, 2009, pp. 272-

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the Learning Science (ICLS), Seattle, Washington, 2002.

[8] E. J. Díez Gutiérrez, E. Terrón Bañuelos, M. García Gordón, J. Rojo Fernández, R. Cano González, R. Castro

Fonseca, R. E. Valle Flórez, O. Fontal Merillas and J. D.

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[13] UNESCO, Engineering: issues challenges and opportunities for development. The United Nations

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comunicacionales para aumentar el ingreso de estudiantes

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